Welcome to the 2022 UKSG conference, from everyone at Gale

The fifth part of Gale’s Archives of Sexuality and Gender series, L’Enfer de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, provides access to one of the most storied and sought-after private case collections in the world. The name alone invokes visions of damnation and moral ruin. L’Enfer (which translates as “Hell” or “Inferno”) refers to the shelf mark given to the collection which was created in the 1830s to protect and isolate works that were considered contrary to the morals of the time. As with other private cases, the entire collection was kept in a locked section of the library because of the erotic or pornographic character of the works, as well as their rarity and value. 

While the content in the collection was withheld from many readers in the past, the creation of this private case is to society’s benefit today, as it meant the content, dating from the 1530s to 2010s, was safeguarded for posterity. Today, L’Enfer is one of the most famous Private Case collections in the world.

COLLECTION CONTENTS

L’Enfer is made up of more than 2,400 printed works. Around 950 additional items come from an appendix to l’Enfer called Flagellation. Between the 1880s and the 1930s, an editorial subgenre flourished in France: the novel de flagellation, a specialised branch of erotic literature. In this context, "passionate flogging" is a sexual perversion consisting of experiencing an erotic pleasure to be whipped. The Flagellation collection in this archive consists of literary works on spanking, caning, and whipping.

LANGUAGES

Documents will mainly be in French, with some titles in English, German, Spanish, and a smattering of other languages.

VALUE OF THE ARCHIVE

As one of the premier private case collections in the world, l’Enfer is much sought after. In an article about an exhibition of l’Enfer at the BnF, Elaine Sciolino of the New York Times wrote the following about the significance of these items:

The ability to digitally cross-search and compare l’Enfer with the British Library’s Private Case (the third part of Gale’s Archives of Sexuality and Gender series) will be of significant benefit to researchers. Both private cases are extremely important to this research area, expanding our understanding of sexual history, developing views on sexuality, the policing of sexuality and the nature of titillation throughout history.

Unique for its high level of centralisation and interdepartmental communication, the British intelligence and security services reached every corner of the world during a century of global conflicts, high-stakes diplomacy, and political upheaval. The files contained in Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence, Monitoring the World cover the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) place the all-important work of signals intelligence in the Second World War alongside the central machinery of intelligence at the Cabinet Office. This unique archive provides extensive detail on the work of GCHQ, vital for the study of military history, intelligence and security, international politics and diplomacy of the twentieth century, and the global history of World War II.

Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth Century British Intelligence, Monitoring the World brings together files from two UK government departments to provide researchers with access to detailed, previously classified information on the intelligence services of Britain throughout the twentieth century.

The Cabinet Office: 10 series from the Central Intelligence Machinery, Joint Intelligence Committee or Sub-Committees and the Overseas Joint Intelligence Groups, covering 1939-1985. These groups are concerned with the tasking of the security and intelligence Agencies, the processing of intelligence and its dissemination to Ministers, to the Chiefs of Staff and to other agencies.

• CAB 159: Ministry of Defence and Cabinet Office: Central Intelligence Machinery: Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee later Committee: Minutes (JIC Series), 1947-1968
• CAB 163: War Cabinet, Ministry of Defence, and Cabinet Office: Central Intelligence Machinery: Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee, later Committee: Secretariat: Files, 1939-1986
• CAB 179: Ministry of Defence and Cabinet Office: Central Intelligence Machinery: Joint Intelligence Committee: Weekly Reviews and Surveys (WRCI, JIC(WSI))
• CAB 182: Cabinet Office: Central Intelligence Machinery: Joint Intelligence Committee: Sub-Committees, Working Parties etc: Minutes, Memoranda and Papers.
• CAB 185: Cabinet Office: Central Office Machinery: Joint Intelligence Committee (A): Minutes (JIC(A), JIC)
• CAB 186: Cabinet Office: Central Intelligence Machinery: Joint Intelligence Committee: Memoranda (JIC(A), JIC)
• CAB 188: Cabinet Office: Central Intelligence Machinery: Joint Intelligence Committee (B) and Overseas Economic Intelligence Committee: Minutes, Memoranda and Other Documents
• CAB 190: Cabinet Office: Central Intelligence Machinery: Joint Intelligence Committee: Working Groups and Working Parties Minutes and Reports (INT Series)
• CAB 191: Overseas Joint Intelligence Groups: Fragmentary Records
   

GCHQ: 17 series covering 1914-1949. Files include decrypts, details on imperial and international intelligence collection and distribution, weekly summary reports, and official histories, particularly of intelligence during the Second World War.

• HW 3: GC&CS and predecessors: Personal Papers, Unofficial Histories, Foreign Office X Files and Miscellaneous Records
• HW 4: GC&CS: Far East Combined Bureau, Signals Intelligence Centre in the Far East (HMS Anderson): Records
• HW 51: GC&CS: Combined Bureau Middle East (CBME): Records
• HW 52: GC&CS: Central Bureau, Brisbane: Reports
• HW 7: Room 40 and successors: World War I Official Histories
• HW 11: GC&CS: World War II Official Histories
• HW 12: GC&CS: Diplomatic Section and predecessors: Decrypts of Intercepted Diplomatic Communications (BJ Series)
• HW 13: GC&CS: Second World War Intelligence Summaries Based on Sigint
• HW 14: GC&CS: Directorate: Second World War Policy Papers
• HW 15: GC&CS and Government Communications Headquarters: Venona Project: Records
• HW 20: GC&CS: Tactical Sigint forwarded to Allied Commands: Summaries
• HW 41: GC&CS: Services Field Signals Intelligence Units: Reports of Intercepted Signals and Histories of Field Signals Intelligence Units
• HW 43: GC&CS: Histories of British Sigint
• HW 44: GC&CS: Summary Reports, Second World War in the Far East
• HW 49: GC&CS: Special Liaison Units: Histories
• HW 60: GC&CS: Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) Signals Intelligence: Records
• HW 61: GC&CS: Records relating to Commonwealth and Allied Signals Intelligence Organisations

The series included in Monitoring the World illustrate the worldwide interception and global reach of British security agencies throughout the century.

This archive provides a near-complete record of the efforts of the first organization to address Native American interests and rights.  This collection contains incoming and outgoing correspondence; organizational records; printed material (including early pamphlets and publications both by the Indian Rights Association and other American Indian and Indian-related organizations); Indian Rights Association annual reports; draft legislation; administrative files, the papers of Indian Rights Association founder Herbert Welsh, photographs (often from Western field trips), materials from the Council on Indian Affairs, and manuscripts and research notes regarding social and cultural Indian traditions. 

Founded in 1882, The Indian Rights Association became one of the best-known nongovernmental organizations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to support American Indians. Founded by White philanthropists, the Indian Rights Association exemplifies the troubling history and the transformation over time of White-Indian alliances over the course of the twentieth century.  Like other White-led organizations, the Indian Rights Association adopted the paternalistic, assimilationist views current at the turn of the century, advocating for detribalization as the most effective means of improving the economic and social status of American Indians in the United States. At the same time, the Association also served as one of the first watchdog organizations to report on and expose the abuses of civil servants assigned by the federal government to work with American Indian communities. In time, the Indian Rights Association would relinquish its assimilationist views, ally itself with new, sometimes Indian-run, organizations such as the Society of American Indians, the National Indian Defense Association, and the Association on American Indian Affairs. 
 
The Indian Rights Association would gain recognition among non-Indian audiences and legislators in Washington, D.C., as a key source of information on American Indians affairs. Although the organization in its early years advocated policies that ultimately had adverse impacts on American Indian communities, it also regularly combated myths and half-truths that regularly formed the basis of legislation and policy affecting American Indians. The Indian Rights Association sought to remedy this lack of reliable information among U.S. government officials and the general population through pamphlets, newsletters, reports, and much else.

The organization began by employing its own agents to tour Indian reservations, where they record information on local conditions that served as background material for legislation as well as a source of the independent evaluation of the work of employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Over the century of its existence, the activities of the Indian Rights Association included:

• monitoring congressional legislation and the policies and actions of the Board of Indian Commissioners, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and the Department of the Interior
• lobbying on behalf of Indian tribes and nations
• supporting the emergence of multiple organizations, both Indian and non-Indian, devoted to helping and supporting Native communities
• cooperating with other pro-Indian social organizations in order to consolidate legal efforts in state and federal courts
• supporting efforts to raise awareness of Indian issues through the development of curriculum for schools and universities
• assisting tribes and reservations in the building of health clinics
• formulating guidelines for tribes to operate under federal policy effectively
• mediating on behalf of tribes with the federal government to restore recognition statutes
• providing testimony and position papers defending the right of American Indians to hold their own political processes
• enlisting experts to produce authoritative documentation on specific issues affecting American Indians
• collecting subject files, legal briefs, literature, and material related to issues in which the association took a specific interest, from representing land claims by Seneca, Wampanoag, Narragansett and other regional tribes to mediating Navajo-Hopi land disputes.
   

This archive addresses questions concerning the administration of justice, the adversary process, and the developing relationship between law and the social sciences, humanities, and sciences. These records are interesting on the human level - they are not just abstracts on legal issues, they are valuable historical documents in their own right.

This collection includes all circuits, including the major ones:

• Second (New York) - enormously influential, especially for business and corporate law
• DC (Washington, DC) – includes federal cases
• Ninth (California) – a key circuit, particularly on western U.S. issues

It aims to address questions such as: How much was the work of sociologists, psychologists, and historians cited? What attention did the courts pay to those citations? What nonlegal evidence was brought to court or cited? Did the court pay attention?

Researchers will be able to gain insights into legal reasoning used by the parties in advocating their position and to identify the authorities used to support an argument.

The briefs in this collection are not readily available - this is effectively a rescue operation, opening material that is inaccessible to many researchers. Law and humanities libraries that serve scholars and students in twentieth-century American social history and politics will find this archive of special interest.

The variety of information in the records and briefs includes:

• Cases on wartime issues raised during both World Wars and cases affecting conscientious objectors to the internment of Japanese Americans
• Decisions that focused on American Indian rights with respect to land claims, treaty enforcement, and other matters of critical interest to Indigenous communities
• Briefs related to federal economic and labor regulations, such as reviews of decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission as well as the work of those agencies created by the New Deal
• Rulings that reflect changes in criminal law, with the expansion in the scope of federal crimes and enforcement of laws related to censorship, sedition (resistance against lawful authority), Prohibition, and more
• Cases that address the changing state of labor relations as new laws at the state and federal levels came into effect with respect to child labor, union organising, and worker safety

This fourth installment of the Women’s Studies Archive programme focuses on individual women and organisations around the world who have broken new paths in society through business, social reform, popular culture, health care, and more. Highlights include contributions of African American women trailblazers; nursing journals from around the world, including Britain, Australia, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean; popular magazines from Australia and New Zealand; and collections concerning the supernatural and crime.

Renowned libraries and collections represented in this module are listed below.

Amistad Research Center:

Papers of Mary McLeod Bethune, 1923-1942
Fredi Washington Papers, 1925-1979
Library of Congress:

Women's Joint Congressional Committee
Papers of Louise Chandler Moulton
London Metropolitan Archives:

HM Prison Holloway Records from the London Metropolitan Archives
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library:

National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses Records, 1908-1951
Katz/Prince Collection, 1967-1973
Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection
Gwendolyn Bennett Papers, 1916-1981
Eusebia Cosme Papers, 1927-1973
Royal College of Nursing:

Historical Nursing Journals
Senate House Library, University of London:

Ida Holden Papers
Edinburgh Seances
Caroline Augusta Foley Rhys-Davids Papers
Diaries about Spiritualism and Other Topics
Smithsonian Institution:

Caroline Jones Collection
State Library New South Wales: Hidden Treasures of the Mitchell Library:

Sydney Periodicals, 1886-2016
Australian and New Zealand Women's Organisations, 1835-2002
The National Archives (Kew, United Kingdom):

HM Prison Holloway Records
Suffragettes, 1886-1935
Yale Divinity School:

Yale Divinity School Periodicals